Cost of Cover

The focus in this chapter will be the cost of cover. The problem with most cover betting and playing techniques is that they will reduce your income. There are two basic philosophies of cover. First, take few if any precautions that would harm your win rate, but just garner what you can and move on when you are barred, perhaps to return in several months. Second, take many precautions to avoid burning out casinos. It makes no sense for everyone to play in the same manner. First, people have different circumstances and goals. Secondly, if everyone played exactly the same — it would be trivial to identify us as counters. I will present the costs here, so you can decide which techniques make sense to you.

There are several charts in this section that follow the below standards:

Ø  The location on the Internet of a larger, easier to read, version of each chart is provided below each chart.

Ø  Many charts display the results at many penetrations. This is because penetration is one of the most important considerations in Blackjack. 26-130 along the x-axis means that all penetrations have been calculated for 26 through 130 cards behind the cut-card.

Ø  Most charts display SCOREs, the win rate under specific standards, defined in Don Schlesinger’s Blackjack Attack.

Ø  All sims must be run under selected conditions (rules, decks, strategy, penetration, etc.). There is a large variation of conditions. Therefore, actual results may be different if your conditions are different.

Ø  The conditions under which the sims were run can be found at the end of each topic in small letters in a box like the one below. This particular box indicates that the sim was for six decks, dealer stand of soft-17, double after split, only one player, the Hi-Lo strategy, deck estimation by half-decks, all penetrations, optimal betting used.

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger